Failed BigPlans
 

Hi everyone,

Its the first time i am here, i know avrt since 2003, 12 years ago. In the first time i tried avrt, i was sucessfull for 2 month, but i eventually got back to my addiction. Since then i tried avrt again sometimes but got back in to addiction.
Then i tried other ways for quitting addiction, but in the bottom i knew that avrt would be always the best answer, either way i always came back to addiction, but was always believing that i could use another way. Conclusion all other ways failed. But i am choosing now to believe that avrt is the only answer, despite my failures. In my attempt to quit addiction, i failed the bigplans because i simply accepted an argument from the beast that was "transparent" for me to see the true natured of it. For example, everytime i get excited when i am alone and have the chance to go back again, my heart starts to beat
i feel those "endorphins" passsing trought my head, and i only can think of fantasysing how excited i will be and how good. Those are conditions wish make me always "change my mind" regardless of the bad consequences i might have. But today i was googling avrt and i stopped here in this forums, e read some posts and i remembered how i used to apply avrt. I also got here because i failed today again and got back to addiction, and felt so miserable, as i always do, when i go back to it, that i decided to register so i can get to the wheels of avrt again.

My purpose here is not to be here forever trying to get support or giving support, because i think that is not compatible with AVRT. Instead, i looking for support and give in the sense that i need to sharp my AVRT skills with the help of the most experienced here on AVRT, because i know that talking with others who succeded in applying AVRT, can change the BEAST beliefs i have that i will never succeed. One problem and im trying to convince me is also that i think that particular addictions are different from alchool or drugs, like "sexual addiction" or "eating addiction" because they are addiction "hardwired to natural needs".

So i am doing a Big Plan today again, since some years. I am doing so without knowing if it is half hearted or not, because if we want to do it, i think in that time its from all heart, and with time, one week or two after the first binge, the all tries to change to half and all this years it suceeded.

So my first question here to start sharpen my avrt is, how many of you failed big plans and then got it?

One more think, i already read the book new cure and i also subscribed the site and read all the new stuff in there, but has time as passed i simply could not apply it, i guess i simply never recognized the beast and thats because i am here.

Thank you all.

Welcome Eternal. Adding some human support can make the difference. I haven't read RR yet so I can't speak to that but when I was done I was done. That probably would have fell apart for me without this site.

Welcome, EternalLiberty, there is a lot of support here for you. Since you mentioned previous failures at beast recognition, what does it mean to you to 'recognize the AV'? What is 'the beast' to your understanding?

Have you read RR's newest book, "The Art of AVRT"? You can't miss it if you surf the RR website. It's got a lot more on non-substance addiction.

Welcome to SR! This is my first time applying AVRT to my sobriety but I am investing in other things to solidify my sobriety like diet, exercise, meditation, SR for continued human support. It is working great so far, so I am going to continue!

Welcome to the Forum EternalLiberty!! :wave:

Glad you're here eternalliberty!
There's a wealth of information here and lots of support!

For me, this community has been an essential part of my continued growth. Having said that, this community does not keep me sober....I keep myself sober by making the choice to never drink again. My sobriety doesn't depend on any external or internal factor, but that doesn't mean I'm not human and I don't need the camaraderie of like minded people! I really hope you'll stick around a while!

Hi freshstart57,

At first i saw the beast as a real identity that was fighting to kill me, and seeing this was one of the keys that helped me not to act. But as the time passed, i failed manytimes and the beast idea started to fade, like AVRT mentions i was becoming ALL BEAST.

I think recognizing the av is simply being aware that every thought and feeling that supports acting on addiction, comes not from me but from the midbrain.

I can consciouly do that, but i failed anyway. Recognizing seems for me, to be only a memory exercise, but when feelings seems to hijack my brain, i simply fail to recognize it in the sense that i feel in a way i have loosed control, or likey Trimpey says "to hell with it" lets do it. i like it. And it says, "ok, you said YOU like it, not the beast, since its YOU then YOU want it, so go ahead.", and i fail to recognize.

But i think the key of my failures until now is that since i failed many times, i gradually lost the hope and motivation from AVRT and recognition. But then again that loss of hope could be the beast itself...

I am very happy you are in the right track Justincredible, but remember what would happen if you dont do "diet, exercise or meditation"? AVRT for me is "you dont do it even no matter what you do or not. " Of course i am not example because i have failed many times and still failing. Thats because i am here. I think sharing your sucess with AVRT is also part of considering AVRT important and effective. I mean if you keep in mind that as soon as you are in the verge of "relapse" experience, you have the chance to apply AVRT, and then share how you did it with others, is itself a motivation for AVRT, its a way that makes AVRT work because others and you are expecting it, and you want share it as soon as possible, but on the other hand the "sharing" idea can be pure AV, because if i dont share anymore then i will fail. You see, i can recognize this, but when the moment comes i seem to loose track.

I decided today i must do a BigPlan but i am not confident, i afraid that doing it is simply a lie and i will go back to addiction. Yes i know that i could be AV, but then again, it could also be me?? And i really dont want to, its getting me crazy

You have obviously identified drinking as something that is harmful to you. Why would you continue doing something that you know is harmful? Would it not be better to quit now, for good?

I've liked the Big Plan idea ever since I first heard of it, even though I'm not doing classic AVRT. My view is that when we fail, it's not really the plan that fails... it's really just a wish, a decision, or a goal. It's our implementation of the plan. The actions that are meant to keep in line with the plan. Accordingly, my suggestion would be to tweak the implementation part, what sort of things you do to stick with your plan in the long run. When sober, I'm quite a strategical kind of person, like to think about long term goals and projects... in this sense, the Big Plan for me was the aim of the project and then I need an approach, methods to work on it. So when I think about failure, to me it's like the actual approach failing, not the aims/plan.

I've been successful with the "sobriety project" since I got into it, but have had numerous other personal goals and aligned approaches that did not yield the wanted outcome. So I need to modify the approach. Often it does not mean rejecting the original one completely, but adding to it, or trying in a different way.

It is not drinking, but is a sexual behaviour, masturbating or using any object to obtain sexual satisfaction is against my better judgement. Sex has its place in marriage, but i choosed not to marry for personal reasons. But has i said before i had and still have difficulty in understanding how eating addiction or any form of sex addiction are different from alchool or drugs. My beast is telling me that its a natural need and i must do it. But i also know that drugs and alchool mixes with this needs and the cravings are almost the same. But my beast is telling me not.

They are similar. I had eating disorders (anorexia and bulimia, but in general more the restricting kinds) when I was a teen and in my early 20's. I beat that one without any external support, but it was hard and took long. It took lots of changes in my thinking, self image, and lifestyle. It also took some serious investigation and work on the underlying psychology. I recognize many similarities in my recovery from alcoholism, although a big difference this time is that I'm using external support. It's made it a much linear road to me compared with my past eating disorder, although I also think that alcohol was more addictive to me.

haennie, thank you for you comment.
I believe that it takes some work for someone to separate themselfs from the addictive desires and understand how to recognize them, letting them go. But once you get well trained in it you will go fine. In the begining you might need some efford to understand the art of recognition, but once you get it its effortless. Thats becausa im here, i need to get it, and i know that i only will get it until i dont do it anymore based on a Big Plan and avrt.

Well, try it that way, see what happens. For me, the eating issue had become effortless and completely a non-issue after a while, but it took a couple years to stabilize. Can't say that my alcohol abstinence is effortless just yet even though I've developed a host of tools to aid it, far more than willpower alone. What I find sometimes is that I'm slipping into the kind of thought processes and behaviors that typically accompanied my drinking in the past, and I've learned to recognize these pretty well (I guess we could call this a form of AVRT even though it's not about drinking urges directly at this point?). Then I do something about these resurfacing patterns -- change things in my routine, seek extra help or a new form of it, etc. It's been working well for me so far but it's far from effortless just now (after ~14 months). I'm quite convinced that if I did not do these actions to target the old patterns I slip into every now and then, some impulses might just lead me back to picking up a drink. Good luck to you with your journey and do consider getting extra help to process it :)

Yes i know what you mean when you say "that I'm slipping into the kind of thought processes and behaviors", AVRT helps us to understand that the AV are those "thought processes", but it also helps us to see its not we, but the AV using arguments that are trying to convince us

Does this mean that you are trying to institute a plan to never have an orgasm, ever again?

Orgasm out of marriage you mean, marriage is always a possibility, and there is a place for it. But since for now i dont have plans for it, i choose not to, doesnt mean it could happen, because if it happens, orgasm has place there. Like a little wine as a place in temper a meat on dinner. But a bottle of wine alone has no place for who wants to recover with avrt from alchool, or is there any AV in this sentences i am using? Not easy

Is this an addiction thing or are you feeling like you shouldn't be having sex unless you are married.

Both